Cassette
Our boy from New Haven is back with this new six track C30 for Kashual Plastik. A little foggier in production quality than last year's Cheap Things LP, Atlas Rand takes a tape-hiss rich wandering step through the trademark Christensen outerzones of guitar-led impressionism - lo-fi folk, drone, noise, distortion as melody, repetition as transgression, forever and ever amen. Whatever the weather, there's always clouds on the SC horizon, and here he's sounding as intense and transcendent as ever, closed eyed playing into the void, singing just a little bit, too. I'm yet to hear a Stefan Christensen record i didn't immediately love. Improbably, Atlas Rand shows signs he might be hitting new highs, the contrasts between the patient undulating pulse of Pilgrimage against the open-hearted swell of Tapestry Loom particularly thrilling, opening up new emotional possibilities for his work, or at least showing we aint done with that thing we call the electric guitar just yet. Another beauty from one of the best around. Please never stop (i posit a follow up called Ayn Shrugged may appear any day now...).
